VICIOUS WEATHER

Sid is a punk rock icon. Considering he figured so prominently in the short life of the Sex Pistols, and knowing my interest in the band, Jack Jensen did the painting above just for me. He pulled the quote from an interview given on April 1, 1978. Sid was right, both he and Nancy were dead in less than a year. Lost souls. A kid living the rock-n-roll lifestyle to the extreme, becoming what others wanted him to be.

Saturday evening I loaded the truck up with my ski gear and drove into the mountains, finding a secluded spot in the Loveland basin ski area parking lot, away from the lights and sound of highway traffic. I was encouraged to go by the weather report: a storm moving across the west that was predicted to dump a couple feet of snow over two days in the northern and central Colorado mountains. I wanted a piece of that action.

The storm was just beginning when I arrived this evening, light wind and snow beginning to fall, not enough to stop me from opening the truck doors wide and turning up the music. Who knows what time it was when I went to sleep in the back under the camper shell.

The following day I rose at 7:30 am and had breakfast in the lodge. Howling wind and horizontal snow, with periodic white out conditions outside the windows, unable to see the short distance across the steep walled valley. Wind was reported to be gusting up to 100mph, keeping the lifts closed. Not wanting to wait or go home, I used the climbing skins to ascend the slopes, reaching the top of a run near lift 6. First tracks in 4 inches of new powder. By the time I turned around and carved fresh tracks down the mountain, lift 6 was back online and I had the first seat in the house. Since I was midway up the mountain, no one was checking for a lift ticket, mine still unused in the pocket. A free day of skiing! I wrapped it up at 1, had lunch and then joined the traffic creeping back to Denver. Home by 3:30 pm.


Martin Luther King
Honored black man's holiday
White out on the slopes


Cold front on a map
Weathermen predict its advance
Blowing in my face


Global high and lows
Brewing oceanic storms
Yields ice that stings his face


Winds ferocity
Raced across a continent
Tall black trees swaying


Cries "I have a dream!"
Longing for that sweet vision
Powder in the trees!


Saturday night back in the Loveland parking lot, first up was Sid Vicious playing Max's Kansas City in New York on September 29, 1978, a good recording of a show that lasted less than a half hour. The people he performed with were pretty good while the singing was so so. But the people were reacting to the performer, not the performance. This was months after the Sex Pistols broke up and the members went their various way, Sid winding up in NYC where he periodically performed.

Someones account of one of Sid's shows at Max's:

The place was jammed, drunk, smoked out and getting beyond angry. And then they came. Sid with New York Dolls Walter Lure and Jerry Nolan (holding Nancy Spungen's hand, yow!), a drummer named Steve Dior and on guitar the amazing Mick Jones from The Clash! And the Clash hadn't even played that first mind-blowing Palladium gig yet (Harold and I went to that too and it was AMAZING! They were never THAT amazing again the few times they returned). They assembled behind the stage's curtain and Sid stuck his head through it and gave us the almighty Sid wink and we knew it was gonna be FUN! The curtain opens and Mick Jones leads the band through primal Dolls and Pistols originals as well as 50s juvenile delinquent punk rock classics ("C'mon Everybody", "Somethin' Else"). Nancy was playing (kinda) tambourine. The audience went ballistic. Every chair and table got crushed with people spitting, throwing drinks, just pure mania. French guys pointing their fingers to the stage, "Seed Veeshus!! Seed!!!!". After the first song some girl yelled "I love you" to which Sid retorted "Shut yr fucking mouth, you stupid fucking cunt!". I'd seen bands get spit on and the bands would usually scowl, or worse, complain. Sid spit back! You could see his goobers spelonking in French punks eyeballs! This had to be WAAAY better than any ol' Sex Pistols gig, this was the flower and the poison in one glorious crash and burn. We left on fire knowing we had witnessed punk rock history, we were singed by it. We lived in NYC and we LOVED it.

Read it all here:

http://boner.crewcial.org/viewtopic.php?f=2&t=77211

In less than 2 weeks after this show, Nancy Spungen, Sid's girlfriend died violently when she was found sprawled on the bathroom floor of their hotel room, dead from a single stab wound to the abdomen, later traced to a knife owned by Vicious. This was reportedly a "007" hunting knife he had obtained after seeing Dee Dee Ramone give one to The Dead Boys' Stiv Bators, although conflicting reports claim the knife to be a Jaguar K-11 with a five-inch blade. Vicious was immediately arrested and charged with second degree murder. Vicious pleaded not guilty and was released on bail. Four months after Nancy's death he overdosed taking a lethal amount of heroin and died before the trial could take place. The end of his very short career.

Here's the show, compliments of pilhead:

http://sex-pistols-pil-live.blogspot.com/2010/09/29th-september-1978-maxs-kansas-usa.html

Next up were the Bunnymen, another variation of their performance at Royal Albert Hall on July 19, 1983, the Warner Music Edition. Fantastic sound! I wished they could have kept on playing for another half hour or more. Classic Bunnymen!!

Find it Here:

http://eil.com/shop/moreinfo.asp?catalogid=489554

Buy it!

TELEVISION IN PORTLAND, PIL IN TOKYO

After putzing around the house this Friday evening, around 10 pm I grabbed the truck keys and drove it behind the house to listen to my music. I was a little leery about doing this considering there was still 5 or 6 inches of snow covering the grass and there's some slope to the ground surface. Parked it, lit a cigar, popped in a CD and cranked up the stereo.

After listening to the music I attempted to take my normal route up to the street, but the snow caused the wheels to spin on the slope leading up to a gap in the scrub oak. I made the mistake of backing straight down in the darkness, getting stuck on a steep section of slope along the drainage, tires spinning. Next morning I took out the chains and easily yanked it out with our other vehicle.


First up was Television, a live performance in Portland, OR on July 2, 1978. This was shortly after they released their second album, Adventure, containing the singles, "Foxhole" and "Glory". The album reached the #7 spot on the U.K. albums chart but did not chart in the U.S.

Wikipedia describes them as:

Television is an American rock band, formed in New York City in 1973. Although Television have never had more than a cult audience in the USA, they have achieved significant commercial success in Europe. Today, they are widely regarded as one of the founders of "punk" and New Wave.

Television was part of the early 1970s New York underground rock scene, along with bands like the Patti Smith Group, The Ramones, Blondie, Richard Hell and The Voidoids, Talking Heads. In contrast to the Ramones' rock 'n' roll minimalism, Television's music was more complex and more technically proficient, defined by guitarists Tom Verlaine and Richard Lloyd.


Malcolm McClaren, former manager of the Sex Pistols, took a liking to Television on his trips to NYC, inspiring him in part to form a band of his own in a similar vein.

The band members independent and strongly held artistic visions, along with Richard Lloyd's drug abuse, led to the band's break-up in 1978.

Download it here:

http://www.megaupload.com/?d=08OR3GD7

The main act was Public Image Limited performing live at the Nagoya City Hall in Tokyo on December 1, 1985. Excellent recording with the band performing well. Johnny is not so chatty or foul mouthed with his well behaved Japanese audience, the band just doing one number after the other with little break in between. I certainly enjoyed it.

Find it here, made available to all by pilhead:

http://sex-pistols-pil-live.blogspot.com/2011/01/12th-january-1985-nagoya-city-hall.html

TAKE A PIL AT READING, PART 2

I chose not to go skiing Sunday because a snow storm was moving through along with a cold front bringing arctic air down our way. Mostly an upslope storm with little snow predicted for the mountains. Little snow, very cold temperatures, traffic on the highway convinced me to stay home. I was bored Saturday night so I wanted a little music.


Only one show with a cigar outside late at night. Public Image Limited at the Reading Music Festival on August 28, 1992, two days before the amazing performance by Nirvana. No competition, PIL could not touch Nirvana. John Lydon spent much of his time on stage trying to get the crowd to show a little enthusiasm. This was supposedly PiL's last UK gig until 2009. The band over-ran their allocated time slot and reportedly were heavily fined.

One person described the performance as such:

"I remember being a bit bored watching PiL. He seemed to be living in the shadows of his past glories. In reflection I regret not being more enthusiastic about this set, but youth was on my side and I wanted to listen to some floppy fringed indie rubbish instead."

But then again he was down on Nirvana as well.

http://www.stewart-nash.co.uk/2010/08/reading-festival-1992-was-it-really-that-good/


Another review of that day:

PiL were playing on Friday, the first day of the festival, third top of the bill, before The Charlatans and The Blunderstuff (which I thought was a disgrace), but after PJ Harvey. I made my way to the front of "the field" while PJ Harvey were still playing so I would get a good space. I managed to get right down at the front, I can't understand these people who go to big gigs and stand at the back. After PJ Harvey finished, I stood and listened to John Peel (the MC) playing obscure indie dirge and watched the roadies setting up.

I noticed that PiL were the only band, apart from the headliners, who had brought backdrops, but more importantly I noticed that the camera crew who had been taping all the bands had disappeared, which was fucking typical! Checking out the crowd I noticed it was a pretty good mixture of old and young. There were also quite a few PiL T-shirts about, and I remember wondering just how many other people had come just to see PiL, there seemed to be quite a lot.

Eventually the records stopped, and the band arrived to big cheers. Even the sight of the backdrops had me excited so by this time I was really up for it. For those who don't know PiL 1992 were; (the newly cropped) John McGeoch - Guitar / (new boy) Russell Webb - Bass (who had replaced Alan Dias a couple of weeks before the gig) / Ted Chau - Guitar & Keyboards / Mike Joyce - Drums. I thought they'd start with 'Love Song' like they had on the tour, but instead they went into a powerful version of Led Zepplin's 'Kasmir' (oh, the irony!), which they hadn't played since the 1986 tour, and as much as I hate to admit it I actually quite like the PiL version!

More here: http://www.fodderstompf.com/GIG%20LIST/reading92.html

Find the show here:

http://sex-pistols-pil-live.blogspot.com/2010/08/28th-august-1992-reading-festival.html

ROCKING IN READING, NIRVANA BURNS THE STAGE

An uneventful first week in January. My thoughts were on the coming weekend and what music I would listen to, having missed the opportunity the previous weekend due to New Years Eve celebrations. And there was so much good music to pick from.

Naturally I stopped in to visit Jack Jensen on Friday. In the short time I was there four paintings flew off the wall, including the one I purchased below. Either there is an instant connection or not.

First up was Nirvana who performed at the Reading Festival in the UK on August 30, 1992. Public Image Limited performed at the festival two days earlier. I'll listen to that one next weekend. Nirvana's performance was stunningly good from beginning to end, Kurt being particularly chatty with the audience in what I assume is an excellent soundboard recording.

This was 12 days after his daughter was born. His wife Courtney said "The day Frances was born this dealer came to the hospital [to see Kurt]. There were eight thousand nurses and doctors outside the door, and Kurt was in the hospital, on a morphine drip for his stomach. He's already on a fucking morphine drip, and then he arranges for this dealer to come and stick a needle into the IV!"

Although Kurt was on and off the heroin, suffering from depression and under pressure from the publicity he hated, he was phenomenal on stage.

He was inexplicably brought on stage in a wheelchair wearing a blond wig amid much speculation that the band was breaking up, Kurt making a joke about the noise that he was a junkie.

This is how that particular show was described:

“The staggering energy and intensity radiating from the stage never let up… Cobain’s ravaged pop songs coming off like some dream marriage of the Sex Pistols and the Beatles, borne on bracing waves of distorted guitar noise.” –Rolling Stone (October 29, 1992)

Ranked #1 in Kerrang Magazine’s “100 Gigs That Shook The World” and voted as “Nirvana’s #1 Greatest Moment” by fans in an NME poll, Nirvana’s historic August 30, 1992 headlining appearance at the UK’s Reading Festival is one of the most bootlegged concerts in the annals of rock’n’roll.

While the show’s centerpiece was a performance of nearly the entire Nevermind tracklist, also noteworthy were early performances of three as yet unrecorded songs which wouldn’t be released until two years later on - In Utero’s All Apologies, Dumb and in its first ever public performance, tourette’s. The career-spanning setlist also reached back to the band’s 1989 Sub Pop debut album, Bleach, for Blew, About A Girl, School, Negative Creep and first single Love Buzz and even further back to the mid-‘80s for Spank Thru. Other songs from the Reading set would appear in studio form on the Incesticide compilation later in the year: Aneurysm, Been A Son and Sliver. Additionally, the band played a pair of beloved covers by two bands that helped shape the formative Nirvana sound – The Money Will Roll Right In by Fang and D-7 by The Wipers.

Download it here:
http://www.megaupload.com/?d=M6G57ZQ5

http://www.megaupload.com/?d=0VZGFRIU

Saving the best for last, Echo & The Bunnymen next performed live in Hamburg on May 6, 1999. This particular excellent quality recording appears to be an edited version of the show, limited to 11 songs. Was still a fun show to listen to.

Back in the house by midnight.

Download it here:
http://www.megaupload.com/?d=U2KTZ6BQ